JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon has said that Facebook’s not-yet-released Libra stablecoin is “a neat idea that will never happen.”
Dimon delivered his comments during a speech at the Institute of International Finance conference on Friday, BNN Bloomberg reported on Oct. 18. Dimon said that the idea behind Libra is not unique and further turned the conversation to his company’s own stablecoin, JPM Coin, revealing that JPMorgan is spending over $11 billion on technological developments this year.
JPM Coin vs. Libra
Dimon thus cemented his previous statements about Facebook’s coin, when he claimed that Libra does not pose a threat in the foreseeable future. Dimon specified at the time that “to put it in perspective, we have been talking about blockchain for seven years and very little has happened. We are going to be talking about Libra three years from now.”
JPMorgan’s native coin has three early applications, according to Umar Farooq, head of the company’s blockchain projects. These are cross-border payments for large corporate clients, which currently rely on wire transfers provided by networks like SWIFT, securities transactions, and usage in JPMorgan’s treasury services business to replace the funds that firms hold in various subsidiaries across the world.
Companies are leaving Libra over regulatory concerns
October saw an array of Libra Association founding members abandon the project, including Visa, eBay, Stripe, Mastercard, PayPal and Booking Holdings. The companies are leaving the Libra project purportedly because it is “not up to par” with American Anti-Money Laundering standards.
A member of the Federal Reserve’s board of governors, Lael Brainard, said that Libra could pose risks to consumers due to a lack of clarity over their rights with respect to the token’s underlying assets and to the system overall.
